Quote Of The Day: We Get It Starting Now Edition
Look at this car, it’s horrible. How did this get through so many people?
We’ve all thought something along these lines when we first sat in a Chevy Cobalt, but few GM employees would ever say it out loud to a reporter. At least they wouldn’t until a much-improved replacement was waiting in the wings. But because the Cruze launches this year, GM execs like VP of global vehicle engineering Karl Stracke can bash on the old Cobalt to his heart’s content, knowing the Detroit News will dutifully report it as a sign that GM “gets it.”
GM’s North American honcho Mark Reuss even goes as far as to tell the DetN
We have never really built good small cars. But we are now.
And though it’s heartening to hear that GM’s top brass are regularly driving and critiquing their company’s ( hopefully non-prepped) vehicles, this ritual penitence is as old a trick for GM as the “happy days are here again” television ad format. Until those Cruzes hit the streets, sell well, and don’t have the problems their Korean cousins did, GM still hasn’t “really built good small cars,” as Mr Reuss so eloquently puts it.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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The message is mixed because on one hand they are playing up iconic American images but then tell us they are a global company. If global is what a modern car company should be, then why can't a Korean, Indian or Chinese car maker serve my needs as well or better than GM? Nice to see progressive Don Henley reaping some royalties for the rights for his song being used to sell petro drinking, disposable consumer appliances.
The European press has not been kind to the Cruze. Cobalt2
Nice. First, it looks like the video is a 5th generation VHS copy, yet it's supposedly from last summer. Second, they specifically say to only look through the windshield and not the rear view mirror. Yet the ad is full of old and generally mediocre vehicles (Avalanche anyone?). It'll be interesting to see what happens with the Cruze. I'm going to bet that it'll continue their tradition of bad to mediocre small cars, it'll just be a bad/mediocre small car to sour the current generation on GM. Sure would be nice if Goverment Motors would FOAD for good. But of course that can't happen because it makes politicians look bad.
Hmmm Man.. Love the song... could feel it bring me in.. sooth my deepest darkest depressing feelings... Then along comes a 50' LVL.. and it smacks me in the face... with a big fat HOT IRON.. called G.M Its going to be.. a LONG C O L D D A Y IN my kind of HELL.. before I buy a [BLEEEEEP] car from you bastards.